I read that and it doesn't even sound like he is very convinced of his argument. As a social model I see that society as analogous to the blood libal that is carried out in much of the middle east. You are wronged and therefore you have the obligation to kill in return. You take an eye for an eye and hope that at some point in time people will learn that they are better off with two eyes. The 'hand' of justice becomes merely the guy with the biggest hand.
I would argue, just for the hell of it, that that society, the Scandinavian, is preparing the way for Feudalism. What you have even in Iceland are areas of control by what is essentially an overlord. The main character, in Najls Saga goes to Serve under King Harold and then serves in his navy. I remember reading somewhere in Buckmister Fuller that he thought the Viking Raiders were really the paradigm for all society since that time. Rob and Plunder demand people pay you to protect them and in the end just declare yourself in charge. Everything from the Normans to Enron.
This is true also of Middle Eastern Culture and once Mohammed pulled it together became the basis of the Islamic culture in the early middle ages.
I assume however that the real objection is to taxes, which really become a kind of payment for protection. If you pay them we will protect you, if you don't we will get you. The problem as I would frame it is that you are going to need the protection so who are you going to pay it to. Sure you can live in the middle of nowhere, buy a gun and live off subsistence, you can do that right now if you want, but you can't do that in NYC. Private armies in cities are better known as extortion rings. They just don't work.
Hell if I apply General Powell's recent logic in the middle east I could go right now and kill my neighbor and declare that I did so because I thought he intended some time in the future to harm me. Like it or not you need laws.
